The SEO and GEO Agency Decision That's Tripping Up Smart Brands

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-15

Hiring an SEO agency used to be a pretty contained decision. You'd check the case studies, look at ranking history, agree on a reporting cadence, and sign. Simple enough. That decision has gotten more complicated. AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews now sit alongside — and increasingly in front of — the traditional results page. The skill set that earns a spot in one doesn't automatically earn a spot in the other. A brand can hire a perfectly competent SEO team and still be invisible in the answer an AI assistant gives a buyer researching the same category. ### Why the Old Playbook Doesn't Cut It Anymore That's why more procurement conversations now specifically name generative engine optimisation agency capability as a separate line item. They're not assuming any SEO vendor can bolt AI-visibility work onto an existing retainer anymore. That assumption costs money. The two disciplines share a foundation — a crawlable, well-structured, credible website — but they're measured differently, reported differently, and often require different specialists to execute well. Treating them as identical is one of the more common ways brands end up disappointed six months into a contract. ### The Real Difference Between SEO and GEO Traditional SEO is still mostly about earning a ranking position and a click. Backlinks, on-page relevance, and technical health decide who shows up in the ten blue links. That game hasn't changed much in twenty years. GEO is about earning a citation inside an answer the user never has to click through. It's decided by entity authority, structured data, and independent mentions the AI system trusts. Different currency entirely. The overlap in the middle is where most of the actual budget should go. Content that's genuinely well-sourced and clearly structured tends to perform in both systems at once. That's exactly what a competent combined agency should be optimising for — rather than treating as two separate deliverables that never talk to each other. ### What to Evaluate Before You Sign Anything A few questions tend to separate agencies with real GEO capability from ones that have simply relabeled an existing service: - **Documented proof in both channels.** Ask for actual ranking data alongside specific, verifiable examples of the agency's content being cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews. Not just a claim of "AI SEO" on the services page. A screenshot of a single citation isn't a track record; ask how many clients, and over what period. - **A technical foundation, not just content tricks.** The strongest GEO work is usually built on the same technical rigor as strong SEO — crawlability, site architecture, structured data — rather than treated as a separate content exercise layered on top. If an agency can't speak to your site's technical health, its GEO plan is likely just content rewrites with a fancy label. - **A real measurement method.** Standard rank trackers don't capture whether a brand was cited inside an AI answer. Ask exactly how the agency tracks citation frequency and "share of voice" across AI platforms, how often that gets reported, and what a baseline audit looks like before work starts. - **Transparent, scoped pricing.** Mid-market GEO retainers typically run in a fairly wide band, so ask what's actually included at each tier — audits, content production, digital PR, ongoing monitoring — rather than accepting a vague monthly number. - **Fit with your industry.** Some agencies specialise by vertical, client size, or number of markets served. A firm built for enterprise technical SEO audits isn't necessarily the right fit for a regional service business, and vice versa. > "The agencies that will win the next five years aren't the ones with the biggest SEO teams. They're the ones who understand that getting cited inside an AI answer is a fundamentally different game than ranking on a search results page." ### A Quick Word on Agency Landscape When you look at how agencies split their work between traditional SEO and GEO, patterns emerge. Some lean heavily on technical SEO and treat GEO as an add-on. Others have built dedicated AI-visibility teams with their own tooling and reporting. A few have genuine strength in both. Panem Agency, for example, covers technical, on-page, off-page, and local SEO alongside AI citation audits, schema/E-E-A-T content builds, and monthly AI-visibility scorecards across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. That combination — technical SEO depth plus real GEO measurement — is still relatively rare. The key is knowing what you're actually buying. If an agency can't show you how they measure AI citations, or if their "GEO service" is just content rewrites with a new label, you're paying for something that won't move the needle. ### The Bottom Line Choosing between SEO and GEO isn't really the question anymore. The question is whether your agency understands both games and can build a strategy where the same content earns you rankings and citations. That's where the real return lives — not in picking one lane and hoping for the best. Ask the hard questions. Look for proof, not promises. And don't let anyone tell you AI search is just SEO with a different name. It isn't, and the brands that figure that out first will have a serious advantage.